Living in the downtown

Everyone tells us how lucky we are to live in the downtown area, but now that we've been here 4 months, we're starting to see things a little differently. I still love my early morning walks with Coco, but now I take a grocery bag with me to pick up garbage along the way. There are two bars nearby and every morning there are empty beer bottles down the block that are strewn about, so I pick them up and throw them out in the public trash receptacles.

Back in PA we lived near a busy state road and the steady sound of cars going by never bothered me, but here in town we get the occasional boom box car passing by that shakes the walls and at night we can hear the steady beat of live music at the bars up the street.

The public works crew is out really early in the morning and for some strange reason, they feel it's necessary to start their leaf blowers at 5:30am, even near the hotel. If I was a guest there, I'd be irate. Along with that noise is the street cleaning truck, the tanker truck that waters all the flowers in town and the garbage trucks. On some mornings they're all out at the same time and it combines for a symphony of unpleasant noise.

Now that it's cooler, we've noticed that there are people everywhere. All of a sudden this town is hopping. It's hard to find a parking space, especially when college classes are in session. I hear it's really bad during Mardi Gras and when they have the arts festival in the spring and that it will be impossible to get in or out of our driveway.

So all this has me looking at different locations for when the time comes to get our own place. We definitely want to be far away from the hub of all this activity. Not only that, but we are totally thinking condo now. We don't spend any leisure time in the yard except on the little front patio we made and, once Coco is gone, we really won't need a yard. It's so much work to keep up even though it's small and we're not getting any yonger. I think a condo or a townhouse with a deck will be just right for us.